Unidentified filthy objects

Pub date May 7, 2013

caitlin@sfbg.com

SEX In an email interview in advance of her Fri/10 appearance at the Center for Sex and Culture, Suzie Silver told me that her interest in alien sex was spawned by a mix of her childhood fascination with Star Trek: The Original Series, NASA’s launch of the Kepler space observatory in 2009, and Isabella Rossellini’s “Green Porno” short film series on the sensual activities of insects and marine animals. Silver recently co-edited (along with Christopher Kardambikis and Jasdeep Khaira) Strange Attractors, a book-DVD project (www.extraterrestialsexuality.org) that explores the notions of extraterrestrial sexuality held by 70 artists, writers, and filmmakers. If that doesn’t inspire you to read the rest of this article, I give up on you.

San Francisco Bay Guardian Please explain your fascination with extraterrestrial sexuality.

Suzie Silver Strange Attractors  asks the participants and audience to try to imagine otherworldly and unknowable life-forms and sexualities. We are imagining sexual possibilities beyond gender, beyond genitalia. In my short story “Donkey Show,” one of the things I describe is a live sex show made up of shape shifting platonic solids that can create pleasurable and climactic responses from all audience members. I’m attempting to envision universal ecstasy and orgasm!

SFBG Have you noticed commonalities related in true-life alien sex experiences? 

SB I have read some accounts, mostly online. For the most part I find them rather unimaginative and not very interesting. The focus is usually on penetration. It all seems rather BDSM, which has its appeal, otherwise how to explain the success of all those 50 Shades books? Strange Attractors attempts a polymorphous perversity: sex outside of reproduction, for pleasure, communication, joy, connection, fun, more complicated power dynamics than dominance and submission. We imagine erogenous zones in, on, and outside of every part of the body and mind.

SFBG Which contributions to  Strange Attractors did you find particularly compelling?

SB I find all of the works truly amazing. Works that I’m particularly compelled by include Vanessa Roveto’s extraterrestrial dating profile where the being’s desirable qualities include “a body comprised mostly of healthy scrotal tissue, the ability to mimic my selves, an oral tolerance for liquid hand sanitizer, a traumatic childhood that will work in your erotic favor, and minimal bloating.” In Michael Mallis and Mikey McParlane’s “Love Puddles:” “In the golden fringe of a far off galaxy, an alien planet teems with exotic life. Twiggy creatures rush to an ominous volcano and rub their bodies against its glittering surface, enticing the volcano to awaken and spray its gooey chaos across the furry world.”

Strange Attractors video screening Fri/10, 7-10pm, $5-10 sliding scale. Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org

 

THIS WEEK’S SEXY EVENTS

Tricks and Chickenhawks reading Wed/8, 7:30pm, free. Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF. www.booksmith.com. Sex worker literati — Madison Young, Kitty Stryker, Carol Queen, more — gather to read from a new anthology of sex worker and john experiences.

“How to Create an Effective Online Profile” Tue/14, 7-10pm, $20. Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. Hear back from that babe on Scruff, FetLife, or Tinder after taking this one-off seminar.